Dana Păpăruz, a multi-award-winning artist
Dana Păpăruz began her career as a costume designer in the early 2000s
Corina Sabău, 15.03.2025, 14:00
Dana Păpăruz began her career as a costume designer in the early 2000s, immediately after graduating from the Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design of the National Arts University, and has collaborated on numerous films and hundreds of commercials. Some of the films are ‘Beyond The Hills’ directed by Cristian Mungiu, ‘La Gomera’ directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, RUXX directed by Iulia Rugină and Octav Gheorghe, ‘Boss’ directed by Bogdan Mirică, ‘Shadows’ directed by Igor Cobileanski and Bogdan Mirică, ‘Warboy’ by Marian Crișan and ‘Lemonade’ / ’Honeymoon’ by Ioana Uricaru.
For her achievements, Dana Păpăruz was rewarded with three Gopo awards: in 2016 and 2017 for the films directed by Radu Jude, “Aferim!” and “Inimi Cicatrizate”(Scarred Hearts), and in 2019 for “Moromeții 2”, the second part of the Moromeții trilogy, directed by Stere Gulea. Radu Jude’s two films, “Aferim!” and ‘Scarred Hearts’ represented two great challenges for the artist. If the action in “Aferim!” (a film that received the Silver Bear for direction at the Berlin Film Festival) takes place in Wallachia at the beginning of the 19th century, ‘Scarred Hearts’ tells the story of a young man suffering from tuberculosis and is a free adaptation of the literary work of Max Blecher.
Here is Dana Păpăruz with details: “’Aferim!’ was really hard, I think it was the project that somehow increased my value. In ‘ Scarred Hearts’ the budget was smaller than in “Aferim!” and it was a new challenge because the action takes place in a completely different period. A close collaboration was necessary between the makeup and sculpture departments that created the casts worn by the characters in the film, who suffered from bone tuberculosis and had to be laid on mobile beds. And their life was quite boring, spent mostly in sanatoriums and limited in movement. The biggest challenge was that I had to create the costumes based on these casts, so I took the measurements and most of the costumes in this project were created by my team, very few were borrowed. At least for the character played by Ivana Mladenovic, Solange, a lot was invested, about half of the budget we had, and some very special hats were created, including that hat with birds. The period in which the action of Scarred Hearts takes place is the interwar period, very attractive from a fashion point of view, when we also had a synchronization and a desire to adopt European fashion. All these aspects helped me to fully use my imagination. Moreover, Scarred Hearts is one of the projects that I was able to play with and I appreciated that Radu Jude wanted me to come up with bold ideas. And since I mentioned the hat with birds worn by Ivana Mladenovic, an example is that very hat. What inspired me to create this hat is a cover of the Vogue magazine from 1939, a cover that I showed to the director Radu Jude, who accepted my idea, so, we looked for variants to succeed in making it. I documented the costumes using everything I found from that period, fashion magazines, photographs taken by Romanian artists, and obviously books.”
Another important project for Dana Păpăruz’s career was her work with the director Cristian Mungiu, who hired her as a costume designer for the film “După dealuri” (“Beyond the Hills”), released in 2012.
Written, directed and produced by Cristian Mungiu, the film is inspired by the non-fiction novels of the writer Tatiana Niculescu, focusing on the exorcism of a nun at the Tanacu monastery in Vaslui County.
Dana Păpăruz: “In principle, ‘După dealuri’ did not appear to be a very complicated film in terms of costumes. Moreover, Cristian Mungiu usually gives you all the freedom and waits for you to come up with suggestions. But the complicated part, which we did not expect, was the fact that the characters wore specific costumes and it is very difficult to document something like that on site, in a monastery, which is a very closed environment. We were lucky, however, that the leading actresses were able to spend some time in a monastery, and that helped us a lot to understand what monastery life means. So Dana Tapalaga, who played the abbess in the film, tried to find out details that were very useful to us, such as how to cover one’s head with that veil that nuns must wear permanently.”
Dana Păpăruz’s most recent collaboration was with the director Stere Gulea, who at the end of last year released ‘Moromeții 3’, a film that concludes a unique trilogy in Romanian cinema, based on the novels and life of the writer Marin Preda.
Dana Păpăruz: “It is a film that explains at a deep level the changes experienced by Romania in the 1950s. It is also a film made with a lot of love and a lot of hard work. It was a very demanding project for me, I didn’t have a single day off during the filming, I would also work at home or reread a new version of the script. At the same time, it is a fresh film in terms of costumes and I think that it can be a surprising story, especially for young viewers”.
The winner of the Audience Award at the 2024 TIFF/ Transylvania International Film Festival, “Moromeții 3” has been screened at several national film festivals (TIFF, TIFF Chișinău, Serile Filmului Românesc – Iași, Film în Sat – Peștișani, TIFF Timișoara). (LS, AMP)
